Interlude Over Sashimi
by SingingFlames
Summary: During their hunt for Lucifer, Castiel and Crowley converse about their situation. No Pairings.


p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"strongWord Count/strong: 1100+br /strongWarnings/strong: Nonebr /strongA/N/strong: One of the many conversations I see characters having in my head, with a bit of a headcanon thrown in. This is for a couple challenges: the Fandom Writing Challenge with the prompt "take out" and Crowstiel (eh, it didn't come out as Crowstiel as I wanted); and the Castiel Color Challenge with the prompt Celadon Green./p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""There," Crowley said, pointing towards a building. "Pull in there."/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""Is this a new lead on Lucifer?" Castiel asked as he eased the old pickup into the parking lot./p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""What? No. I rather think if the devil were here, there'd be more police cars. Ambulances." Crowley cocked his head to the side. "Hearses."/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"Castiel parked, eyeing the indicated building. Flanking either side of the entrance, two large statues - Imperial guardian lions - stood sentinel. A glowing sign, emblazoned with Chinese characters and a stylized serpent, proclaimed the establishment to be 'The Green Dragon'. He could see tables lined up in neat rows inside, patrons occupying several of them. "Then why are we here?"/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""I'm peckish."/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"Castiel turned and glared. "You don't need to eat."/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""Doesn't mean I can't take pleasure in it, does it?" Crowley raised a brow. He clasped the door handle but didn't open it. "Decent entrees, here, but I happen to know this place has the best sushi in the city. Let's have us a bite."/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""I don't need to eat," Castiel said, exasperation coloring his voice./p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""Your loss."/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""Crowley, we don't have time for this!" Castiel waved a hand at the restaurant. "We need to keep moving. Find our next lead."/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""And where are we off to, yeah? How many leads do we have right now?" The demon tapped his chin in thought. "Oh, that's right. None! So tell me, where's the advantage of driving around, Helen Keller-like, when we have nowhere to be?"/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"Castiel tightened his grip on the wheel, eyes fixed on the parking lot./p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""Fine," Crowley said with a sigh. "We'll get take out."/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""I. Don't. Eat."/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""I'll get take out. Whatever." Crowley shook his head. "emCiao/em."/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""Chow? What do-?" Castiel bit off the comment. He was alone./p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"This was idiotic. Lucifer was free, doing not-even-Heaven knew what, and he was stuck sitting in a pickup, waiting for a demon to buy raw fish for unnecessary consumption./p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"As the minutes ticked by, Castiel contemplated the street. He could - should - leave. This was pointless. There was no reason to sit here, wasting time. Lucifer was out there, free, causing unknown amounts of pain and suffering. Castiel couldn't sit still, doing nothing./p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"But where to go? As much as he hated to admit it, Crowley had a point: they had no leads. Castiel's eyes followed the lazy flow of traffic, as if the answer would simply present itself, perhaps as a flood of emergency vehicles, racing off to Lucifer's current location. But the cars and other vehicles continued their unhurried pace./p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"He tapped his knuckles against the steering wheel, jaw tight./p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""Miss me, darling?" Crowley's purr interrupted his thoughts. Castiel spared him a demon had reappeared in his seat, a cellophane wrapped plate on his lap./p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""What took so long?"/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""It was eleven minutes. Impatient, aren't we?" Crowley peeled back the plastic on his dish./p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""Every minute we stay, is another minute Lucifer gets farther away."/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""Or closer." At the angel's confused look, Crowley continued, "We don't know where he is or going. Just as likely he's coming our way as not."/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"Crowley unwrapped a pair of chopsticks. With deft movements, he grabbed a small piece of fish - not adorned with rice or seaweed as Castiel had been expecting - and placed it in his mouth. He chewed with slow, deliberate motions, a pleased sigh escaping his lips./p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"Castiel grit his teeth. "Must you waste time on raw fish?"/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""Sashimi. And it's delicious. Hardly a waste." The demon plopped another piece in his mouth. "Find anything?"/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""There's nothing to find out here."/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"Crowley raised his brows. "Your phone? Research? Leads?"/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""Oh." Castiel shook his head. He… hadn't thought to do that. Technology was not his forte. But after all his admonitions over wasting time, he didn't feel like sharing that. "I have no news."/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"Crowley scratched his beard. "So, no leads, but at least I can enjoy a bit of The Green Dragon's finest."/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"Castiel grimaced. Why must the demon remain so interested in trivialities, like food? This place? As if there weren't literally existence-ending dangers lurking, always on the verge of destroying them and this tiny world. Yet here was Crowley eating fish and praising human restaurants. Castiel's gaze landed on the establishment's sign and it's colored lettering. He shook his head./p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""It's not even a real green."/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""Sure it is. It's celadon," Crowley countered. Glancing from the corner of his eyes, he placed another sashimi in his mouth. "What's crawled up your petticoats? You're more grumpy than usual today."/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""I'm fine."/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""Right. Of course you are. You're known for nitpicking colors. My mistake." Crowley waved his hand dismissively./p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"Castiel sighed. "I am fine. I just want - no, need - to find Lucifer. Keep him from hurting others."/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""And that's, what, your responsibility, is it?"/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"Castiel looked away. "I let him out. Everything he did, does, and will do, is on me. He is killing people. That is my fault."/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""People that'd be dead anyway, or worse, had Amara had her way, yeah? We needed him and you made the choice."/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""Did we really need him? In the end, did he help? Or just cause pain? Everything he did - everything I did - that's on me."/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"Crowley watched him, absently rubbing the chopsticks between his fingers. "You know why some of us demons call him 'father'? True, he made us and all, but the main reason? He taught us most of the things we know. And we know pain. Torment." His gaze bored in on Castiel. "We live on it. And if we leave a meatsuit alive, more times than not, we leave them hurting. We're in their heads. We know what they love. We make them kill it. Destroy what they cherish. Just to leave them stewing with those memories, with that guilt." He paused. "I know possession, love. And I know how we leave our former meat. Who do you think taught us that?" Castiel's eyes slipped aside. Crowley continued, "You may have given him the wheel, but he's the one who drove."/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"The angel stared across the parking lot. He opened his mouth, paused, then asked, "Are you mad at me, for what he did to you?"/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"Crowley sat still for several moments, his only movement the steady tap of chopsticks against the plate. He shrugged. "I was. But now? I am no more mad at you than I am at your shoes. He wore you both."/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"They sat in silence, Castiel gazing through the windshield at nothing, Crowley finishing off his last piece of sushi./p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""We should go," Castiel said, voice quiet, mulling over Crowley's words./p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""Of course. That was the whole point of the take out, after all. Eat on the road, and all that." Crowley held up the empty plate and shook it slightly. "Since we didn't have time to eat here."/p  
p style="margin: 1em 0px; color: #666769; font-family: Cabin, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;""Shut up." /p 


End file.
